Giving Way
by AzHale
Summary: Broken and isolated, Edward thinks about what brought him here.


This piano was born the same year as my grandmother. It's old and dusty, the keys cracked and chipped. Horribly out of tune on the lower end.

So, if I play, I hit the octave up. Everything sounds too high, tinny, and...weird. It shouldn't feel weird. I mean, it's the same configuration of black keys and white keys: whole steps, half steps, minor thirds. I just have to decide not to dwell on it...the sound. The emotion is more important, anyway. That's what I tell myself. That's what I remember.

The piano I had at home is all polish and black lacquer and real ivory keys. It's a grand. It's so long that I could make love to her on top of it if I wanted. But I'm not there and she's not here and this fucking piano doesn't feel like home. Not like the other one does. Not like she does.

There's a water bottle that's been refilled with OJ sitting next to me on the bench and I'm thirsty.

_"No food or drink by the piano. You know it's not a good idea, love."_

Mom...she used to say that all the time. Sometimes, if I was particularly stealthy, I could get away with my one cookie, or my peanut butter and jelly. I'd just put it on the bench next to me, never on the music rack, because let me tell you: it's a bitch to get strawberry jam out of between the keys.

So anyway, here I am, sitting in front of the shitty piano that's in the dark lobby of the boy's dormitory, drinking my orange juice. Whenever I take a drink, it stings where I've been gnawing on the inside of my cheek. I'm tempted to just...toss the bottle and find a drinking fountain, but I've been sitting in front of this dilapidated Steinway for too long to just get up now. It's not that I'm lazy, or that I don't feel like going anyplace. And it's not even that I want to play. I just need to sit and remember.

The pattern‚ the _white black white black white white_, is so familiar. I can thread my fingers in between the battered black accidentals and imagine they're her fingers weaving in with mine. I can remember what it was like to watch Elizabeth and Edward Sr. jump to their feet in applause at the end of a concert. They were proud, and I was proud of me, too. If rolling tissue on toilet paper rolls had made them happy, I would have done it...but they just wanted me to be _me_. To love my piano and biology, baseball and Bella. That was enough for them, so that's what I did. And I did it the best I fucking could. I lived to make them proud.

So when they died, I just fell apart. The court accepted Charlie's petition to take me in at least until I turn eighteen in June, and while he and Bella did everything they could for me, it quickly became apparent that I wasn't okay. That's to be expected, obviously—the not eating, having no desire to bathe or go in public or even get out of bed. I was depressed. Who wouldn't be?

But a month went by, and then two. Bella had taken to undressing me and dragging me into the shower with her before Charlie got home so she could wash my hair and my body because she said I stank to high heaven. Even then, I'd just sit in the tub, oblivious to the fact that my gorgeous seventeen-year old girlfriend was naked in the shower, washing her hair and her breasts and her pussy. She even tried to go down on me once—to cheer me up, snap me out of it, I don't know. It didn't work. Eventually, Charlie said I needed help. Like, _real_ help. Not the kind Bella could give.

And that's why I'm here.

I'm not angry with them; in fact, I'm happy to be out of their hair. I could see, even through the haze, that I was pulling her down with me. Anytime I pushed my plate away at the dinner table in favor of doing the dishes and not eating, she'd blink and nod like she understood...but I could see it. She was worried for me and tired of seeing my ribs and my collar bones and failing me. I wanted to be right for her. I didn't want to see the blood anymore, or hear the begging and the futile struggle and the caskets being lowered into the ground.

I'm fisting my hair (they tell me I'll get bald spots). If I pull hard enough, take my pills, the images go away, don't they?

When I close my eyes, I want to remember that time I came home early from school and caught Elizabeth watching Sally Jessy Raphael, crying like a baby and eating bon-bons Peggy Bundy style.

When I close my eyes, I want to remember what it felt like to stand high up on the mound, how moths would flock to the halogens, the thrill of rounding bases and that single instant the bat makes contact with the ball.

When I close my eyes, I want to remember what it was like to push inside of her for the first time. How crazy amazing that was...to...to see _me_ inside of _her_. It's funny that the woman wraps around the man, warms him, holds him, cradles him. Don't we tell ourselves that it's the other way around? That it's my job to hold her, protect her?

Warm her.

Even better, I want to open my eyes and see home. I want to see my parents, alive. I want to have the opportunity to beg Bella to dance with me at prom (because God knows I'd have to beg) and someday, our wedding. I want to play my goddamn piano and sleep in my own fucking bed! This is _bullshit_!

I'm tearing my hair out in clumps, but it's not enough. I need to feel the exertion of my arm slicing through the air, the satisfaction of some heavy object slamming into something else, shattering, loud, piercing. Destructive. But there isn't anything in this room that isn't bolted down. Why not just put me in a padded room and call it a fucking day?

So, I do the only thing I can do. I'm pounding on the keys with my fists, stomping with my sock feet, discordant tones ringing out into the silent evening. I'm screaming and cursing and telling the world whose fault it is. I call out Bella's name, begging her to help me, to believe me, to rescue me.

She can't hear my cries, though. She's not here and I'm not there and there are always hands and needles and straps to put me in my place.

I just want my piano. My mom, my dad, my girlfriend and her mouth. But it's time, time for me to face reality. What I have is a run-down Steinway that wouldn't sell at a flea market and dead parents and a girlfriend who said she loves me but can't deal with the crazy in my head.

I'm _not_ crazy. There was blood and begging and teeth and flesh giving way.

...

It takes hours for me to come out of the haze the needle put me in but now I'm awake and it's daylight. I can see the clouds through the bars bolted to the outside of my window.

"Edward, may I come in?"

I turn around and God help me, it takes everything in me not to piss my pants on the spot. He's tall and blond with a kind smile on his face.

But I know better.

"Edward? My name is Dr. Cullen. I've been assigned to your case and I think I'm in a unique position to help you."


End file.
